


The OA Part III

by zulawski



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22434136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulawski/pseuds/zulawski
Summary: Hap is in control of OA, who doesn't remember who she is. The others come to terms with their new reality, and try to free her.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	1. The Making of The OA

The first episode of Part III is a straightforward behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of The OA. Brit, Jason and all of the rest of the cast are interviewed on set about their characters, their inspirations, what it’s like working on the show, and the physical challenge of learning the movements. This is a real making-of documentary that takes up the first 30 minutes of the episode. It’s being shot concurrently to The OA Part II. Filming is almost complete when Brit has an accident on set. She’s taken away by ambulance and her husband Jason (who, as we know, is actually Hap) goes with her. Patrick Gibson (who, as we know, Steve has just jumped into) catches up with the ambulance and confronts Hap. Hap manages to stay in character as Jason and acts like Patrick is delusional or playing some kind of sick joke, and has him subdued by the paramedic in the ambulance then apprehended by security once the ambulance arrives at the hospital. Brit wakes up in the hospital, and is tended to by Jason, who she remembers as her husband. She correctly recalls that her name is Brit Marling, the year is 2019, and Trump is U.S. president.

In a flashback, we see that for a few days prior to Brit’s accident, the actor Ian Alexander had been confusing his identity with that of the character he was playing in season 2, Michelle – he seemed to think he was Michelle, and a psychologist had been called to assess him. In the hospital, Patrick Gibson is now displaying similar symptoms. He’s aggressive, frightened and out of control, convinced that he is his character Steve, and trying to tell anyone who’ll listen that Jason Isaacs is Hap. Medical staff diagnose him with sudden onset acute psychosis and confine him to a secure ward.

Using Jason’s keys and phone, Hap is able to locate and get into Jason and Brit’s shared London home. There, looking on their computer, he discovers that in this reality, although his wife was the actual writer of the series, Jason is the one who took credit for it – both Netflix executives and the general public are under the impression that Jason Isaacs is the writer of The OA, that the show is his brainchild that he developed as a star vehicle for himself and his wife. In reality, Brit is the secret genius behind the series, but wrote it all in her husband’s name; she is under Jason’s financial control, and he is her agent and manager as well as her husband. The only people who know that Brit is the true author are her and Jason. Using this as a starting point, Hap (as Jason) develops a plan to take advantage of Brit’s head injury and confusion by gaslighting her into thinking she didn’t write any of the series – he did.


	2. Arrival

In a pre-credits sequence, while Hap is at the house and Brit is in the hospital in a state of painkiller-induced delerium, she dreams that she is visited by Will Brill and Sharon van Etten, claiming to be Scott and Rachel. They ask her a couple of questions and tell her that the show was real, that she really is OA, but through her haze, she doesn’t believe them – in fact, she isn’t sure whether they’re even really there at all or whether she's hallucinating the whole thing, and neither is the audience. Her mind is swimming.

This dissolves into the opening credits to Part III: a montage set to a new arrangement of The OA theme, showing scenes from Brit’s earlier career as a struggling bit-part actress trying to break into the film industry; we see a supercut of her in different wigs and styles, playing throwaway parts like “Bikini Babe 2” and “Blonde 4”; being kissed roughly by a gangster in an exploitative thriller; being murdered in a low-budget slasher film; being passed over for roles in favor of ‘sexier’ actresses. As the montage continues, we see her meet Jason and be taken under his wing, and she starts to become successful and grow her career once the relationship is public – as a well-established actor-producer, he has lots of contacts in the industry and is able to get her cast in projects… as long as she stays together with him. We see scenes from her wedding and domestic life with Jason; the two of them posing for a magazine photo shoot; Brit typing at a computer; the two of them arguing then making up and kissing; a pile of scripts titled The OA being printed; and scenes from the production of the show. End of opening credits.

We cut straight to Brendan Meyer and see the final minutes of P2E8 from his perspective - he's backstage in a dance workshop practicing the movements with the other Crestwood actors when Brit has her accident. Immediately he notices a sudden change in the others - Phyllis, Brandon and Chloe suddenly seem confused and disoriented, as if they don’t understand where they are, while Patrick falls to the ground, picks himself up and runs out of the room (without noticing Brendan), where he sees Brit and runs after the ambulance. Brendan realizes what has happened – the others have jumped.

He goes to BBA and the kids – who are emotional to see him again, crying and hugging him – and explains the situation. 36 hours ago, while getting into character as Jesse via the method-acting approach of mentally reliving a past trauma in his own life as a way to connect to Jesse's suicidal grief, he suddenly found Jesse's memories welling up inside him and felt Jesse's consciousness enter him. Since then, he isn't sure if he's Brendan, Jesse or both - he feels like Brendan and Jesse combined. As he hadn't been needed in a scene since Jesse jumped into him, he has been able to stay backstage and disguise this, but he witnessed Ian claiming to be Michelle. Brendan/Jesse tells the group that what was their reality is a TV show here and they are all actors - and that BBA's counterpart isn't just an actress, but the choreographer who created the movements. She was leading the young actors through the dance rehearsal when BBA and the kids jumped into them. He impels the group that they musn’t let anyone know that they jumped and that the story is real – they have to pretend to be their actors, and try to integrate with their counterparts’ memories if they can, like he managed to. He says that there have already been problems as Ian had been claiming to be Michelle, which suggests that a version of Buck from another dimension had already jumped into Ian’s body prior to Buck doing so. Brendan tells Buck that from now on he has pretend to be Ian, and to make out that his identity confusion with Michelle was just a temporary delusion that he’s now recovered from.

~~~

While BBA and the group are still backstage in the rehearsal space recovering from the jump and coming to terms with what Brendan has told them, on the main set, the ambulance taking Brit to the hospital has already left when Emory Cohen suffers a sudden apparent heart attack. Paz and Bria tend to him, and an ambulance arrives. Bria – who is Emory’s girlfriend – joins him in the ambulance to hospital. During the journey, Homer’s consciousness jumps into Emory’s body. Homer recognizes Bria as a different version of his wife from D1, and asks if they have a son; she says no, she had a miscarriage, and she is upset he doesn’t remember that; she realizes he must have amnesia or has perhaps had a stroke that has affected his thinking. She keeps calling him Emory, and he asks her what’s going on; he’s able to ascertain from her that in this reality, they’re actors making a TV show called The OA.

Homer is taken to the same hospital that Brit and Steve were, where he overhears a female paramedic tell a doctor that he’s the third person from “that show” to be brought there today – one with a traumatic head injury, one suffering from an acute psychotic episode and now one with cardiac arrest, “all in otherwise healthy young people”. He asks Bria more about the show. She tells him that the public loves the on-screen love story between OA and Homer, but in reality he (Emory) is together with her (Bria) and Brit is married to Jason (who Bria tells him created the show).

BBA finds Phyllis’s phone on her person and discovers the London address that Phyllis was staying at while working on the show. She travels there with the kids, wanting to keep them safe and together with her. Arriving at the house, she discovers that it’s the home of Phyllis’s brother Theo Smith, an alternate version of her own deceased brother, who is quadriplegic. She is overwhelmed with emotion when she sees him – both at seeing him again, and the fact that he’s paralyzed in this reality – but he doesn’t understand why she’s so upset, since from his perspective they only saw each other that morning. This moment of trauma upon seeing Theo causes her to integrate with Phyllis, and all of Phyllis’s memories come flooding back – her early career as a dancer, her switch to becoming a choreographer when she was no longer able to perform herself, her memories of growing up with Theo and the traumatic skiing accident that paralyzed him as an adult a few years ago, and her being commissioned to develop a series of emotive physical movements for a new TV show called The OA and teach them to the cast.

Given the three on-set incidents in rapid succession – Brit’s accident, Patrick’s psychosis and Emory’s heart attack, as well as Ian’s brief delusional state – production on The OA is halted and the set is shut down. An incident is declared and chemical tests are carried out to see if there is a physical reason for the sudden accidents and illnesses, but nothing is found.

~~~

By the next day, Homer has largely physically recovered, and he’s able to “perform” as Emory well enough to pass. Tests have come back fine and the doctors see no reason to keep him in hospital. He asks a doctor if he can visit Brit on her ward, but access to her is restricted given her high profile and serious injury. He asks Bria to go and snoop, and after she convinces an orderly to let her onto Brit's ward, she returns saying that Jason was there and is taking care of Brit. Homer realizes that the third person – the guy with psychosis – is the key, and finds out from Bria that it’s their OA colleague Patrick Gibson. Homer asks the doctor if he can speak to his friend Patrick to see if he can get through to him. The doctor agrees.

In a private visit in the isolation room where Steve is being held, Homer reveals his real identity to Steve and explains the situation, telling Steve that he has to calm down and pretend to be Patrick Gibson to everybody in order to be released. Homer tells Steve that he'll come back for him tomorrow, and goes home with Bria. It works; once Patrick has been acting "normally" again for 24 hours, and all of his tests come back negative, the doctors decide he's safe to be released. Homer collects him from the hospital. When Patrick Gibson’s phone is handed back to Steve after his release, he sees there is a text message from someone called Brendan Meyer, saying that he knows about the jump and telling him to come and find him and the others as soon as possible. He shows Homer the message.

As an executive producer of the show, Jason is summoned to take part in a meeting and video conference with the series’s other executive producers and two Netflix representatives, and they jointly decide that as Part II was so near completion when the on-set incidents happened, there’s no point in resuming production and they may as well move forward into post-production with the footage they have, so that the season can be released on a reasonable timescale. Paz returns to Spain.

BBA/Phyllis asks Theo if the kids can stay at his house for a while, and he agrees. Steve calls Brendan, who sounds exactly like Jesse, and he tells Steve where they are; Steve and Homer arrive at Theo’s house, and Steve and Brendan/Jesse have an emotional reunion. Steve and Homer tell the group that there is no way they can get access to OA – she’s completely under Hap’s control.

~~~

Brit recovers from her physical head injury well enough to be able to return home to the London house she shares with Jason. She's still wearing a neck brace, on prescription pain medication, and has some degree of amnesia, and the medics remain concerned about her, but Jason is able to use his power and celebrity status to persuade them to release her into his care. As well as having remembered the basic details of her life, she's also starting to remember most of what happened in Part I and II of The OA, but not as a reality; she remembers acting it on set and going over some of her dialogue with Jason. She completely believes that he was the series's author - this is what he told her while he was caring for her, it's how everyone else addresses him too, and in her current blurry mental state she can't imagine herself having been a writer. Jason seems powerful and kind, and like the only person she can rely on right now; she remembers loving him. Hap brings her to the house and continues to take care of her there.

Homer tells BBA and the kids about D2, which he recalls from his time integrated with Dr. Roberts. He, BBA and the kids come up with a plan to send BBA to D2, where she had originally intended to travel (“Only safe for BBA to go”), in order to get help. In the garden, the five kids stand in a pentagon around BBA and perform the movements to send her to D2… but it doesn’t work. Recalling Phyllis’s memories of performing the movements together with the cast members in rehearsals for months, BBA realizes that they have no power in this dimension – the movements only work in the fictional context of a TV show. Here, they’re just choreography. She and the others realize at once that this means everyone is trapped in this reality with no way to leave, unless they can find another way to jump dimensions that doesn’t require the movements.


	3. Quantum Psychotic

In D2, continuing immediately from the end of P2E8, Nina falls back to Earth when OA jumps out of her body. She is miraculously unharmed, and calls an ambulance and the police, who arrive and arrest Dr. Percy. Dr. Roberts, who has just been shot by Hap, is taken to hospital, accompanied by Nina and two police officers. He undergoes emergency surgery, but is too badly wounded. Nina asks for a moment of privacy, and the police officers wait outside. She holds Dr. Roberts, and they talk – since they were both integrated in Overview, they have OA and Homer’s memories of spending years together in captivity, and have a residual echo of OA’s and Homer’s feelings for each other. Dr. Roberts says to Nina that OA and Homer knew each other so intimately, and cared about each other so deeply, but never got to touch, let alone kiss; Nina says “Maybe we can make up for that” and kisses him tenderly… before he slips away. Grief-stricken but composed, Nina returns to the police station with the officers for questioning.

At Treasure Island, a medical team are retrieving the comatose bodies of Scott, D2 Steve, D2 Jesse, D2 French and the others from the pool. Renata, her memory fully returned, has been removed from the institute and is also at the police station being psychiatrically assessed. The police question Darmi and the other institute staff, but they seem to know very little. In an interview, Nina tells the lead investigators everything that Ruskin and Dr. Percy were doing and tells them where to find all the tapes and documentation in Dr. Percy's office. She tells them to contact Karim to verify her story and for more information.

Still shaken to the core by what he witnessed after opening the Rose Window, Karim visits Michelle at her grandmother's – he feels a desperate need to talk about what happened, partly to reassure himself he’s not crazy and didn’t imagine the whole thing. Michelle tells Karim about her experience in D3, where she found herself in the body of a television actor – confirming to Karim that everything he witnessed through the Rose Window was true. Karim is particularly haunted by the image of his houseboat – his home, that he knows intimately and has lived in for years – as just a piece of set decoration, and the idea that Mo may not even be a real person, that his past relationship with her might just be a false memory or scripted storyline. The notion that the entire world might not be real, just someone else’s story, is terrifying, but he is brave enough to confront it.

In custody, Dr. Percy is charged with several counts of kidnapping and bodily harm, the suspected murder of Rachel, and the murder of Dr. Roberts. As he was never integrated with Hap, Dr. Percy has no memory of the events of Part II, which is why Nina’s testimony and evidence proves so vital. Nina, Renata, Darmi and the institute staff are free to go.

After providing a full report to the police investigators, Karim messages Nina again and they meet. He tells her what he saw when he opened the Rose Window. Karim says he now knows what this reality is and where OA has traveled to, and that everything she told him was the truth. He tells Nina that OA is injured and in grave danger, and that together, from their dimension, they have to try to help her.


	4. Premiere

Three months have passed.

Not knowing about integration, Hap has been unable to recall Jason's memories or allow Jason's personality to surface, as he lacks the ability to relinquish control. The stress of having to constantly pass as a well-known public figure is starting to get to him, but try as he might, he can't remember; Jason remains caged within him.

At Emory and Bria's apartment, Bria is about to head to the airport to work on a modelling project abroad for a few days. Homer asks her for a pause in their relationship due to his memory loss. Bria is sad, but understanding. The true reason Homer feels the need to do this is because hasn't been able to integrate with Emory, and as such, he knows that being in a sexual relationship with Bria would be wrong – she's Emory's wife, not his, and if they were to make love (which she has been wanting to, but he has kept refusing and deferring, causing strain in their relationship), he'd technically be assaulting her, as she still thinks that he's Emory. He says to her that in the future, when he's better, he does want a serious relationship – he'd like them to marry and try for a child together once again. Bria kisses him on the cheek, and leaves.

Brit has recovered from her physical injury and is well enough to work again, but still has some memory loss. The show’s extensive technical team have finished post-production, and The OA Part II is about to be released. During this time, she has noticed that Jason has consistently been acting strangely – he can’t remember certain details of their life together, his accent seems slightly different, and altogether his manner and behavior is starting to remind her more of his TV character Hap than her husband. She jokes “Are you sure you haven’t been taking method acting too seriously?” During the final edit of the show together with post-production staff before its release, Jason visibly struggles and seems not to know what he is doing, despite being an executive producer. He reluctantly has to ask Brit to help him. Joining Jason and colleagues in the editing suite, Brit notices that Jason is uncomfortable with certain scenes featuring Hap, almost as if they remind him of past sins or he feels they present his character in too a negative light. They complete the final edit and the series is locked, but Jason seems restless and unhappy.

Homer is at home alone in Emory and Bria’s apartment, pondering over what to do next and how to get to Brit. There is a knock at the door; Homer opens it, and it’s Will Brill. Will says “Homer?”… and Homer realizes that it’s Scott. They hug.

~~~

When he passed out in the house on Nob Hill, Scott found himself transported to a different reality, one in which he was actor Will Brill. He’s been lying low at Will’s apartment in the U.S. ever since - confused, frightened and relatively short on cash (as he doesn't know the PIN for Will's bank card or phone), but thankful to be in a healthy body and free for the first time in years. Researching his counterpart online, he realized that he was in the dimension of his NDE, where Brit and Jason are married. He also recognized Phyllis Smith as the heavy-set woman from his NDE. When Will's agent booked him a flight to London to attend the upcoming red-carpet premiere of The OA Part II, he realized that this is where his past self will appear and learn the third movement – and that he has to make sure this happens, otherwise he and his fellow captives in D1 will never learn the full set of movements and thus never escape Hap’s custody. He figured the news story about Emory's unexpected heart attack might mean that Homer had jumped into the same dimension he had, and managed to find Emory's address in Will's old emails. He's also keen to get to OA at the premiere and try to break her free from Hap's control, but knows that he can't do this alone.

Homer warns Scott that it’s imperative that Will actually stay away from the premiere, as past Scott will physically manifest there in a separate body, and two versions of him can’t be seen together at the same time in front of a crowd. To help Scott understand how NDEs work, Homer recounts his own experience – first of when he jumped to D2 in the NDE, crawled through the duct, was chased down the corridor and ate the sea creature, and then Dr. Roberts’s memory of witnessing the same event as Prairie tried to convince him what was happening. Homer brings Scott to Theo’s house so he can meet BBA and tell her what she has to do. At first BBA doesn’t understand, and thinks she has to teach Scott the movement there and then, but Homer explains that Scott’s past self will materialize at the premiere and she has to find him and show him the movement. They develop a plan for BBA to convey the third movement to Scott on the red carpet without arousing suspicion. They also discuss ways to establish contact with Brit to see if she’s alright and if she remembers anything yet.

~~~

In the week leading up to the premiere, to be held at a cinema in Leicester Square in central London, Jason is even more possessive and controlling toward Brit than usual. Hap is afraid of what might happen when Brit encounters Emory and Patrick (who Hap knows are actually Homer and Steve) and the others on the red carpet. His behavior baffles and intimidates her, but she continues to be affectionate with him, wanting to please him and stay on his good side – he’s her husband, they have a public image to maintain, and her career as an actress depends on having him as her manager and being part of a power couple. She knows how precarious her situation is, and how easily he can destroy her career and everything she’s worked to achieve. Yet there’s a certain frisson of disquiet that she feels when, at the end of each day, she follows him up the spiral staircase to their bedroom.

Buck finds that he is able to integrate with Ian by mentally revisiting the trauma of the body dysmorphia he experienced in his early adolescence and his growing realization that he identified as transgender, a process both he and Ian went through. Upon integrating, Buck is able to access Ian’s memories of having acted in the show for the past two seasons. Steve, Angie and French are unable to integrate, and Angie seems more and more to believe that she is Chloe Levine and that her Crestwood life wasn’t real. This makes it dangerous for the others to discuss things in front of her.

~~~

Brit, Jason and the cast attend the red-carpet premiere at Leicester Square. Homer arrives with Paz, who has flown in from Spain to be there, and looks beautiful; Sharon’s manager has passed on the message that she is unable to attend. Jason is lauded by the press as the series’s mastermind, while Brit is the beautiful starlet by his side. She tells the entertainment reporters that “it’s all thanks to my amazing husband for writing this wonderful series”. The younger cast members arrive as a group with BBA/Phyllis and, after briefly posing for photographs and waving to fans, go straight inside without answering any questions from the press pack, as BBA/Phyllis stays on the red carpet to chat with reporters, meet fans and sign autographs.

A disoriented, frightened Scott from P1E5 materializes in a cubicle of the gents’ toilets in the cinema lobby, and – following the sound of people – stumbles out into the red carpet area, where Brit, Jason, Phyllis and the others are being photographed by the assembled press. The crowd is stunned – some people think an addict or vagrant has crashed the red carpet, but many fans and entertainment journalists recognize him as Scott in his costume from Part 1 and think it’s some kind of promotional stunt. Two security guards are about to grab him and pull him off the red carpet when BBA/Phyllis tells them to step back, in that instant becoming Scott’s guardian. Gently but authoritatively, she says “I’m here to give you the third movement“, and performs the movement to him, looking him straight in the eye to calm and reassure him, and getting him to repeat it back to her; the glamorous Phyllis and the groggy, bedraggled Scott perform the movement in unison as the crowd of press photographers enthusiastically snaps away, thinking it’s a stunt to generate media coverage. Jason looks startled but watches on; Hap knows that this is the moment when he accidentally killed Scott, and feels residual guilt, but he is content to watch Scott be given the movement as he knows that this is how past Hap will also discover it. BBA/Phyllis takes Scott’s hand and they walk into the cinema together; inside, she leads him into the toilets ‘to change’, embraces him and tells him to take good care, and he vanishes again.

At the cinema's bar after the screening (which comprises the first two episodes of Part II), French and Steve deliberately start a fight to distract Jason, with Patrick pretending to have another psychotic episode and French pretending to try and subdue him. Other attendees and security staff get involved. Amid the melee, Homer finds Brit and manages to speak to her on her own, and asks her to follow him to a quieter part of the bar. He tells her that he’s really Homer and tries to get her to realize that everything she experienced was true, not just a TV show she acted in, but she doesn’t remember – to her, it’s all just fictional. Brit is fond of Emory, but isn’t sure whether this is his idea of a joke or he actually means it; she laughs off the idea, telling him things like “How could it have been real? There’s no way we could have used the same stream as a toilet, for drinking water and for bathing without all getting sick and dying. You’re asking me to believe that Khatun and NDEs and robots that send you to another dimension are real?” Homer pleads with Brit to try to imagine herself into that world – to watch the show again, read over the scripts, immerse herself in the story – maybe something will ring a bell. She thinks he’s being ridiculous, but he asks her to promise, and she does. He also slips her a phone, asking her to keep it secret from Jason and to contact him if she needs help or changes her mind. Puzzled, she accepts. BBA takes charge of French and Steve and apologizes to the venue staff for their behavior. Homer tells BBA “I couldn’t get through to her. But she took the phone.” BBA replies “We have to keep trying.” Brit leaves with Jason.

Back at the house after the premiere, Brit keeps her promise to Emory by looking around the house for things that might trigger her memory. In a stash of documents in the spare room, she finds the old scripts for Part I and II. Holding them in her hands, reading them through, she’s haunted by a slight sense of deja vu and begins to wonder whether she actually wrote parts of the series herself, not Jason. When she returns downstairs and innocently questions Jason on this as he drinks a glass of water in the kitchen, he is supercilious and evasive, saying that she couldn’t write something like The OA if she tried, because she’s just a pretty face, a “dime-a-dozen dumb blonde actress” who, without him, wouldn’t have a career and would be relegated to “getting her tits out in B-movies and performing to audiences of a hundred people in community theater”; when she angrily responds by telling him he acts more like Hap every day, he calls her pathetic and delusional, and throws his glass of water over her. She bursts into tears.

Outro music: Astaire – Love Trap


	5. I Wish I Knew

The first 20 minutes of this episode is a backstage documentary about Sharon van Etten. We learn insights into her creative process, and hear her discuss the making of her 2019 album and her role in the series. The documentary ends abruptly, incomplete; Sharon is watching it in a viewing room in New York with the documentary makers so that they can get her opinion on it. She’s happy with the film, but they all decide it needs more concert footage towards the end, so Sharon suggests they film her upcoming London concert in 4 months’ time. The two guys agree, excited at the opportunity to go to the U.K.. Back at her apartment after the meeting, Sharon sings quietly to herself in the kitchen while preparing a bowl of icecream. She sits down in front of the TV and begins to watch a 90s sitcom rerun when the picture turns to static and she feels a sudden sharp pain in her neck.

We follow Rachel’s consciousness as, having entered the television in P2E3 (we hear distant echoes of BBA and the kids repeating “Only safe for BBA to go” in the background), she emerges in D3 and finds herself in an apartment in a new body. By looking for clues around the apartment, she’s able to determine that in this reality, she’s a singer called Sharon van Etten. She cries with a mixture of relief and fear – relief that she isn’t dead, and that she has her voice again, but fear at being stuck in this mysterious new dimension on her own. She researches The OA online and discovered that it’s a TV show here; watching recent clips of the cast, she can tell that no-one from her dimension has arrived here.

Over the coming months, Rachel keeps a low profile and finds pleasure in listening to and learning Sharon’s songs, so that she can pass as her in public if need be. A couple of small gigs go OK, but she cancels other larger engagements until she can feel more comfortable in Sharon’s skin on stage. Part of her wonders if this is the afterlife – after all, being a successful singer-songwriter was always her idea of heaven – and whether she might be here forever. She discovers that some of Sharon’s songs are ones that she wrote herself as Rachel in D1 (and she thus already knows them), while others are new to her, and is intrigued by this overlap between Sharon and herself.

When Sharon’s agent reminds her of the concert she is due to give in London, Rachel is fearful of having to perform as Sharon in front of such a large crowd, and pulls out. But then she sees online news reports of the strange incidents that halted production at The OA, and realizes some of the others may have jumped to her dimension. She tells her agent that she will go through with the London concert after all, and spends her time learning the songs as best she can. Having never had the chance to be this successful and perform for large audiences in her original dimension, Rachel even begins to look forward to the opportunity – she’s awestruck at what her D3 counterpart managed to achieve. After hearing of Emory’s hospitalization and Brit’s accident, she hopes and prays that maybe she can reconnect with Homer and OA in London.

~~~

Brit has a nightmare of Hap, not Jason, making love to her in a glass coffin. She wakes with a start; it’s 6am. She doesn’t want to get back into bed with Jason, so heads to the bathroom. In the shower, further vague impressions from Prairie’s life flash before her mind’s eye, and she feels like she’s going crazy, that her boundary between actor and character is slipping.

Appearing on various TV shows to publicize The OA Part II (we see excerpts of Jason Isaacs’s actual TV appearances), Hap is becoming increasingly stressed at having to constantly perform a role. Not only that, he’s more and more frustrated with Brit for not being the woman he loves; he misses Prairie, but is afraid of losing control. As much as enjoys toying with her, and the dominion he has over her, deep down, part of him wants Prairie to remember – and to love him, Hap, not Jason. But he can’t take that risk; her ascension in Overview terrified him, and he doesn’t know how much power she might have. In the spare room of the house, in the same stash of documents where Brit found the old scripts, Hap discovers Brit’s handwritten notes for the remaining three seasons of the show. He studies them closely, then burns them.

The OA Part II is critically lauded and attracts a respectable amount of viewers, but is unexpectedly cancelled due to the problems that affected production as well as the fact that an algorithm has decided the show isn’t pulling in enough new subscribers. At first, only the cast and crew are notified of the cancellation. Brit is devastated, but Hap is secretly glad. It means he can continue to control Brit and stay out of the public eye, living an affluent and secure life with her as his wife.

~~~

Rachel messages “Homer?” to Emory on Sharon’s phone. Emory replies: “Yes!” They arrange to meet when Rachel arrives in London. Homer, Scott and Rachel have an emotional reunion, and Homer and Scott fill her in on everything that has happened. She talks about having been alone in this world for 4 months already and having to adapt to Sharon’s life. They reassure her that she isn’t dead and this isn’t the afterlife. Rachel spends all night out dancing and drinking with Scott and Homer, as the three celebrate their freedom and everything they’ve overcome. After Homer leaves, Rachel and Scott dance intimately in a busy club, and Scott starts performing jokey, seductive versions of the movements to flirt with Rachel; she performs them back at him, and they both laugh and fall into each other’s arms. Rachel kisses Scott, and a tear runs down her cheek. It’s like they’re the only two people in the club. Returning to Sharon’s hotel room, they make love.

Attending the Sharon van Etten concert the next day, Scott and Homer are at a loss as to what to do in the wake of the show’s cancellation – they have no idea how to get Brit to remember that she’s OA, especially as access to her is so tightly controlled by Hap, and they think they’re stuck in this dimension now that the movements are useless. On stage, Rachel is beginning to struggle… her voice wavers and she can’t remember the words to one of the songs, forcing her to apologize and take a unplanned break to compose herself. 5 minutes later, she comes back out on stage, takes the microphone in her hand, and without her backing musicians, begins to tentatively perform the emotional song that Rachel sang while in captivity with the others in Hap’s basement. Looking out at Homer and Scott in the crowd while singing “I Wish I Knew”, all three of them crying, Rachel finds that Sharon’s memories come flooding back – she integrates with Sharon, and her voice becomes stronger and more confident, joy spreading across her face. She signals her backing musicians to join in and asks the crowd to sing along, as the song blossoms into an anthem – a defiant celebration of survival.

Jason has just returned to the house from a Netflix meeting about the legal rights to the show when he and Brit have another huge argument, and he grabs her by the neck and holds her face underwater in the basin. Disturbing memories of Hap drowning her in Part 1 flash through her mind, but she still doesn’t believe they were real – because she remembers the camera crew and safety technicians in the background of the scene, and toweling herself off afterwards. That night, after Brit has gone to bed, Hap finds the phone that Homer gave her, and puts a tracker on it.

After the concert, the audience spills out onto the street, and Homer and Scott join Rachel backstage. As they leave via the backstage entrance, an old man is waiting for them there. It is Scott Wilson, and he reveals to Homer, Scott and Rachel that he is a helper spirit sent by Khatun. Having played OA’s adoptive father in D1, he is OA’s ‘brother’ in this dimension, and he has a plan to save her.


	6. Abel

When actor Scott Wilson messages Brit, saying that he is in London for a convention and asking if she would like to meet for coffee, Hap sees no harm in allowing her to go. Given the recent fraughtness, he thinks it would be a good strategic move to give her some space – Wilson certainly isn’t a sexual threat, and it also gives him an opportunity to test that the phone tracker is working, as well as some peace and quiet, as he is growing increasingly tired of Brit and of constantly having to pretend to be Jason. He has no reason to think that Wilson would know anything about the dimension jumps – as far as Hap is concerned, Wilson is just an elderly actor.

In an Italian espresso bar in London, Brit meets Wilson. They chat, and she tells him that Emory tried to convince her that the show is real and that she’s really OA. She also tells him about the dream she had in hospital where Scott and Rachel from the show tried to convince her of the same thing. Wilson listens with interest, and asks Brit what she thinks. She replies: “It’s clear something strange is going on, ever since the weird things that happened on set. But I know it can’t be real. I’m not an angel. I was there in the editing suite – I remember the effects company that added the octopus and the robots in CG. I remember the sound being mixed, and having to re-record pieces of dialog. I remember the location shoot in California, and pretending I don’t know how to drive a car when I do. I remember how much Emory and I laughed when he was playing a version of his character who didn’t remember me. I remember how difficult it was to shoot the episode in the house with Karim – the low lighting, the green-screen work, the practical effects… none of it was real.”

“Stories can feel true, and can express truth, even if they’re not literally true,” Wilson replies. “You used to know that, before you hit your head. When we were making the first season, you told me that before The OA, you had a lot of roles that weren’t really satisfying or challenging. Shows that were made for money, without any heart, by writers who’d forgotten the power of fiction. And I know what that's like. I’ve been in a lot of pulp too – which is why I would never have agreed to play your father if the script hadn’t spoken to me so deeply, if it hadn’t had this ring of spiritual truth to it. Whether or not this story of the OA is real, it speaks to something real within us, and you can draw power from it. Don't forget that. And whether or not you wrote it, you are an author – I can see it in the way you look at people, the way you think about the world. If you’re unhappy, change the script.”

~~~

A tense situation develops at Theo’s house as Angie continues to have residual amnesia from the jump, and starts to believe that she is Chloe Levine and the others are all crazy. Theo confronts BBA about what’s actually going on. BBA tells him the truth – and to her amazement, he believes her. She tells him that in her dimension, he’s dead. He asks her to take him with them on their next jump, if they can find a way to jump. Angie is about to call Jason and tell him their location, but Steve is able to stop her.

Following Wilson’s advice, Brit surreptitiously searches the house for more old OA material – scripts, notes, whatever she can find: anything that can prove it was her who wrote the show. But there’s nothing. She gives up and makes a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Tossing the used coffee grounds in the kitchen garbage, she notices some burnt paper fragments amidst the food waste. Picking them out and reading as much as she can make out, she slowly realizes that they’re a concept plan for Part IV of The OA – and they’re in her handwriting.

She walks out of the house and calls Emory.


	7. La Economía del Consentimiento

One month has passed. The cancellation is announced publicly. All over the world, people who loved the show use social media to protest the cancellation, and a #SaveTheOA movement begins to take shape.

Brit has taken shelter at Emory and Bria’s apartment, and Homer is looking after her there. When she walked out the house and told Emory what she’d discovered, he contacted his manager, who arranged for Brit to give an interview to Channel 4 to tell the world that it was her who created and wrote The OA; how Jason used his power over her to blackmail her into letting him all the credit, or else he’d destroy her career; how he gaslit, assaulted and bullied her; how he took advantage of her head injury and memory loss to make her believe what he wanted; how Emory reached out and tried to help her; and how the truth only came flooding back to her when she found the burnt fragments of the notes for Part IV, a world that existed in her head and no-one else’s.

Hap is unsuccessful in his attempt to take legal action to stop the interview being broadcast, and flies into a rage while watching it. After the broadcast, public sentiment is on Brit’s side, further fueling Hap’s fury. In the house, he picks up a sculpture of Old Night on the windowsill that a fan gave Brit as a gift, and hurls it against the wall, smashing it. He picks up another fan-made gift – this time a small sculpture of OA with angel wings – and is about to smash it too, when suddenly he pauses: he has had an idea.

~~~

The next day, through Jason’s agent, Hap begins to use Jason’s extensive PR contacts to spread negative stories about Brit throughout the press, using the public sphere to abuse and discredit her. Within just a couple of weeks, she becomes a national hate figure based on false stories – tabloids and magazines are full of articles about how she was never faithful to Jason, how she ruined his life, how she was mentally ill and unstable, how she’s “no angel” in real life, and so on. Hap even sells unflattering photographs of her that he found on Jason’s phone to celebrity magazines and websites.

This full-on media assault is taking a severe mental toll on Brit, and Homer supports her as best he can. Because of the phone tracker, Hap knows she’s at Emory’s apartment, but has decided not to intervene personally; as a public figure, rather than risk a direct confrontation with Brit and Emory, he prefers to use the media as his weapon of choice while keeping his own hands clean. The fake stories are mainly appearing in British publications, but because of Brit’s global fame and the fact that media outlets in other countries trust the U.K. press and don’t realize the stories are fake, they are being repeated and republished worldwide. While there is a strong online movement to support Brit, much of the general public sides with Jason over his wife and doesn’t believe her allegations – after all, he’s been a popular and charismatic movie actor for a long time, while she’s a relative newcomer, and people have a hard time reconciling the allegations with their existing image of him. On TV talk shows in the U.K. and U.S., a few popular male pundits even suggest that rather than Jason having exploited and controlled her, she was knowingly prostituting herself to him in return for work, and was only speaking out now that the show had been cancelled and her money stream had dried up.

During this distressing period, Homer continues to take good care of Brit and shield her from the public eye; there is an inchoate affection between them, which is complicated by the intermittent presence of Emory’s girlfriend Bria in their shared apartment. Brit still doesn’t believe in the OA, and Homer has almost given up trying to get her to remember the truth – he’s just happy that at least she has escaped Jason and is in a physically safe place for the time being. Now that she’s free, he hopes she will gradually find herself more and more.

As Homer grows closer to Brit, Bria – already frustrated with the pause in the relationship – decides that things between her and Homer just aren’t working anymore, and that sticking around is just delaying the inevitable. She sees the way Emory looks at Brit, and knows that by staying with him and hoping their relationship can be resumed and salvaged, she’s kidding herself. She tells Homer that she doesn’t think he loves her anymore, and that she’s leaving him for good and going to stay with friends in New York. He begs her to stay, but in vain.

Brit, even while suffering so much herself under the media onslaught, has the grace and kindness to console Homer. She says “I’m sorry this has cost you so much, me being here. I never intended this, and I don’t take it for granted.” Homer reassures Brit that it’s not her fault. Brit replies: “At least you can understand what I’m going through, after what happened with you and Bria over the miscarriage.” Homer doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and says “What… happened?” Brit reminds Homer that a year and a half ago, when Bria lost her pregnancy, a medical clerk sold the story of her miscarriage to a British celebrity gossip magazine, and Emory and Bria had to issue a legal injunction to prevent the magazine from going to print with it. This is the first time Homer has heard about this – and seeing his obvious shock, Brit believes for the first time that he really is Homer, not Emory. “In a break on set, early on in the filming of Part II, you told me about the double pain you went through,” Brit tells him, “first when you lost the child, then when someone tried to sell the story of your tragedy for profit. You know, there are lots of things from before the accident I still don’t remember – but I remember that as clear as day. I could see the grief and fortitude etched onto your face, the way you masked your loss with quiet dignity, and I know how humbled and privileged I felt that you chose to share such a personal experience with me.”

As Brit speaks, Homer’s longing for his own son becomes one with Emory’s buried trauma at losing their child …and Homer integrates with Emory.

~~~

Homer/Emory arranges for Rachel, Scott, BBA, Theo and the kids to come to his apartment in a private car to visit Brit, to help jog her memory further. They all call her OA and are overcome with emotion to see her, hugging her and crying, though Angie stands to one side, still skeptical and distant. Brit sees that their feelings are real, that they genuinely believe she’s the OA, but she mainly remembers them as actors, recalling all the days they spent on set together in the abandoned house set, with camera operators and sound recorders in the background as she narrated her story to them. Rachel thanks Buck for taking the mirror to the medium and for believing in her, and Scott thanks BBA for being his guardian and teaching him the movement in his NDE; she holds him tight. In the car on the way back to Theo’s house, Steve tries to get the agitated Angie – who keeps saying that she’s Chloe, and calls Steve Patrick – to remember their relationship.

Heartened by the extent to which the others believe in her, and as a way of regaining a semblance of control amid her public hounding, Brit begins to write. Once she has started, she can’t stop – having labored so long under Jason’s illusion that she was just an actress, writing feels like rediscovering her true self. Fueled on by the others’ support of her, she pours all her feelings into the scripts – the loss she feels in the wake of her series being cancelled, the tumult of the years of control and abuse by her husband, her nascent feelings toward Homer/Emory, and her growing sense of confusion between her character’s identity and her own. Day by day, she works fervently. In a few weeks, she has finished eight scripts for a new drama series – a postmodern telenovela featuring Paz Vega as the lead – that she intends to pitch to different TV networks. Only Brit, Homer, Scott and Rachel know that it is an adaptation of Brit’s original plan for Part IV of The OA, but with the title and character names changed. Finding the burnt fragments of Brit’s notes brought back her memories from years ago of creating and planning out the entire series. She knows that when Jason burned the notes, he must have seen and studied them too, which is why she has made changes to the story to stay a step ahead of him.

A first TV network agrees to a pitch meeting, and Paz flies to London to meet Brit and prepare for the pitch. They had discussed the idea over the phone – Brit had called Paz to tell her the concept and check that it was OK to write a series around her – but this is their first time meeting face to face since the red-carpet event. Paz tells Brit that she believes her, not Jason, and that she has her full support. Brit reveals to Paz that the series is based on her original plan for The OA Part IV, and is a way of bringing the show back to life in a different form – and that Paz will play the OA character, not Brit. Paz posts to Instagram that she and Brit are headed to California for a meeting with a TV company, and the two of them fly from London to San Francisco on BA411. On the plane, Brit sees her true face thanks to the NDE that Old Night gave to OA in Syzygy, and integrates with OA.


	8. Firebird

"The one who seeks to own you is going to make a powerful discovery.  
He will use it to destroy your faith in yourself, so that you will need him to survive.  
The only way to recover is to form a tribe.  
No tree survives alone in the forest – when one tree falls ill, we all send food.  
For, if one tree dies, the canopy is broken, then all suffer the weather and pestilence that flood in.  
You will not survive on your own."

In D2, Karim visits Mo, and tells her that he loves her and their child and wants to be a part of their life in whatever form he can. “I know this comes far too late, but I met someone who made me less afraid, who helped me see life differently," he says. "This world… it’s stranger than we can possibly imagine. But I have faith that whatever life throws at us, we’re stronger if we face it together. I’m not asking for us to get back together… you call the shots. But from now on, I want to be here for you in whatever way you need me to be. However high-minded my reasons were, the bottom line is I was a coward to leave you to raise our child alone. I experienced something that made me realize I can’t survive alone without you – both of you.”

In D3, via their agents, Homer, Rachel, Buck and Jesse give a series of appearances, interviews and statements across TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, websites and social media, in which they say that they support Brit and believe her story. As they’re all integrated with their actor counterparts, they’re able to speak credibly and authoritatively about their personal experiences of working with her on the two seasons of the show. The tide of public opinion begins to turn back in Brit’s favor.

On the plane, sitting next to Paz, Brit has just integrated with OA as the plane rocks with turbulence. Suddenly she understands it was all real, and knows what she has to do. Looking through the scripts, she realizes that Renata’s description of her NDE matches a scene in one of the episodes. When they land, she calls Emory and tells him to fly to San Francisco with Scott and Rachel as soon as he can. OA/Brit and Paz check into their hotel in San Francisco.

Watching Emory, Sharon, Ian and Brendan make a live TV chat show appearance together in support of Brit, Hap feels increasingly cornered. While he knows that Emory is Homer, he doesn’t realize that the others are Rachel, Buck and Jesse. On his phone, he watches Brit’s location on the tracking app as she arrives at the hotel. He books a flight to San Francisco in 4 hours’ time, when his phone rings – it’s Chloe Levine. She says she’s being held captive by Patrick Gibson and Brandon Perea, who’ve gone crazy and think they’re their TV characters. She gives him the address of Theo’s house. Hap realizes this means there are more D1 jumpers than just Steve, and sees this as his opportunity to kill Steve and anyone else from D1 who has jumped and knows the truth about him. He slips a gun into his belt and heads out.

As they are driven through San Francisco on their way to the pitch meeting, OA/Brit and Paz pass by Netflix headquarters. Seeing a small group of fans standing outside holding placards, they ask the driver to stop. They go over to the fans and speak to them, including one who is on a hunger strike to protest the cancellation. They offer her water. “Algorithms aren’t as smart as we are,” the woman comments. “They cannot account for love.”

Hap arrives at Theo’s house – as Hap knocks on the door, he can hear Chloe screaming inside as Steve and French try to subdue her and keep her calm. We hear Steve shout “Don’t you understand? He’s Hap!” and French says “Get the phone off her.” Hap breaks the door down and charges into the hallway, reaching for his gun.

Stepping out from behind a doorway, BBA hits Hap on the back of the head with a large metal tray as hard as she can. French and Steve run out and wrestle him to the ground. The whole thing was a ruse; Steve had managed to get Angie to remember, and she was in on it.

~~~

When Brit/OA and Paz arrive back at the hotel, they are accosted by entertainment reporters waiting outside, who ask Brit about the latest stories about her in the press, describing her as a serial liar and fantasist. She responds: “You can deny my truth all you want, but you cannot deny the OA. She exists. That world, all those people – they exist in here, in my mind. I created it, and every one of you knows it. You can cancel a show, but you cannot destroy an idea.”

Hap is tied to a chair, and French and Steve interrogate him, saying they know everything he’s been doing to Brit and ordering him to call off the media attack. They have frisked him and found his gun, and Steve has it pointed at Hap’s head, threatening to kill him unless he complies. BBA looks on anxiously. Hap goads them: “You wouldn’t dare shoot me, not unless you want to go to prison for the rest of your pitiful life for murdering Jason Isaacs. No-one will ever believe you.”

BBA asks Steve to pass her the gun; Steve looks surprised, but hands it over to her. She points it at Hap’s face. BBA tells Hap: “Maybe they wouldn’t, but I will. I’ve lived my life, and I’ve learned more about human nature than most people do. Not from meeting Prairie and coming to this dimension, but from 40 years as a schoolteacher. I know your type, Hunter. You’re not the school bully. You’re not the kid who starts fights in the schoolyard just to feel the adrenaline, the kid who disrupts class to get the attention they don’t get at home, the kid who beats up younger boys because he’s being raped by his stepfather. You’re not even the school shooter. You’re the A-minus student who sails through school almost without any problems because you have complete contempt for all of it – your classmates, your teachers, your town, your family – and you know you’re destined for better things. Normally they go on to good universities, then into banking and finance, executive positions, corporate fast-track programs… anything that appeals to their vanity and allows them to treat other people like ants. I know you better than you know yourself, and I will pull this trigger. Now make the calls.” She passes him his phone.

Hap calls Jason’s media contacts and tells them to halt the false negative stories about Brit.

~~~

On board a plane to San Francisco, Homer, Scott and Rachel are over the Sierra Nevada mountains when the aircraft encounters severe turbulence.

At Theo’s house, the doorbell rings. Theo answers the door; we see him speaking to someone, but we don’t see who it is. Suddenly, a crow flies into the house past Theo and the person; it flies straight into the room where French, Steve, Angie and BBA are holding Hap at gunpoint. In the commotion, Hap is able to hurl his body toward BBA, knocking both of them to the ground; the gun goes off, miraculously shooting through the rope holding Hap’s left arm to the chair, as if guided by some unseen hand. His arm free, Hap grabs the gun and shoots French in the foot, then wrenches the chair off his body and throws it at Steve. He knows he only has a limited amount of time left before his flight is scheduled to depart, and runs for the front door. He is about to reach it when Theo rams him with his wheelchair; Hap topples over Theo and hits the floor. Theo moves quickly towards Hap again, with Angie and BBA close behind him, when Hap shoots Theo in the chest and Angie in the shoulder, stands up, and runs out of the front door into the darkness. Reaching the main street, he hails a taxi; Steve is not able to pursue him in time, and loses him in the dim light.

Theo dies in BBA’s arms.

Paz and OA/Brit are having breakfast in the hotel dining room when they hear reports that a manhunt for Jason Isaacs is underway in London. The TV shows police cars closing on Heathrow Airport. After breakfast, they leave to attend a second pitch meeting. As they drive past Netflix HQ again, more OA fans have gathered outside. As the wind strengthens, some of the protesters are struggling to keep their placards aloft.

In D2, Karim uses his detective credentials to help Nina and Renata get into the Treasure Island facility, which has been locked down as evidence by the police.

~~~

The second pitch meeting goes well, and OA/Brit and Paz celebrate with dinner in a restaurant. BBA messages OA that Hap is loose and to take care; they don’t know whether the police have caught him yet. OA/Brit and Paz head back to the hotel. OA calls Homer; there is no answer.

Since her encounters with the fans and news reporters, word has spread that Brit is in San Francisco. More fans arrive to protest the cancellation outside Netflix headquarters.

Brit watches a news channel in her hotel room as the wind whistles outside. A weather alert warning of unexpected severe weather in the Bay Area flashes across the bottom of the screen, as old footage of Jason and Brit is shown while a panel discusses the latest developments. A strong gust buffets the hotel, and the power goes out. OA/Brit goes to the next room to check on Paz. In the corridor, Hap immediately grabs her by the neck and forces her back into the hotel room.

“So, I bet you’re wondering how I got here, huh?” he whispers, squeezing her neck and holding her face up close to his. “Go to hell,” she spits back. “I flew here through the night on a private plane I bought months ago using Jason’s money, with a flight plan filed under a false identity,” Hap tells Brit. “I had it all in place as a back-up, ever since I realized I wouldn’t be able to pass as Jason forever. It was almost as if the wind blew me here.”

“I saw on the news you shot someone,” OA counters. “Just like you killed Rachel, and Scott, and August, Evelyn, the sheriff, Leon… how many more? What happened to the Hap who wanted to ‘cure death’? The intellectual drive? Even if you were partly motivated by fear of the abyss and a desire for personal glory, at least you cared about something beyond yourself. You weren’t lying when you said you had a higher purpose. But all I see now is base sexual entitlement, brutality, and a need for dominion over others. You never knew how to make people follow you – you wanted me to worship you, but you never acted in ways deserving of it. You never learned how to appreciate something without wanting to possess it, or how to possess something without breaking it in the process.”

As she speaks, she can tell from his pupils that Hap is aroused by what is she saying, or perhaps just the fact she’s saying it. “Oh, Prairie,” he sighs. “I’ve missed you.”

“Well, I haven’t missed you,” OA fires back immediately. “You mistake control for love; you know only how to own me. And I can feel Brit’s thoughts inside me too, and I know that she doesn’t love you either. She loves London in the summer, the freedom of the written word, the fans who tell her how much the show meant to them… she might even have loved the person Jason pretended to be when they first met. And she loves Emory. But never you.”

Incensed by these last words, in a fury of revenge, Hap throws OA into the bathroom and pushes her up against the wall of the shower cubicle, accidentally knocking the shower on in the process. As water drenches them both, he sexually chokes her against the wall – enthralled by his own power – until she stops breathing. Paz bursts in, followed by hotel security, but it’s too late – OA is dead. As Hap releases his grip, her warm, wet body falls to the floor.

Slowly, we see the hatred and the thrill of power leave his face, as the color drains out of him, replaced by a dawning look of realization, as he understands the horror of what he has done. He has destroyed the only thing he ever truly loved, or thought he loved. He begins to convulse hysterically, and an unearthly scream issues from the depths of his lungs… his body racks with sobs as two hotel security staff grab him and pull him away. “OA!” he calls out. “OA! I’m sorry! What have I done? What have I done? Forgive me…”

~~~

For the first time in several years, OA finds herself in Khatun’s realm, and tentatively enters her cabin. The elderly Khatun, her face etched with love and sorrow, enfolds her in a maternal embrace. “My child,” Khatun says. “You’re home now.”

The wind outside the hotel stops, and an eerie calm descends on San Francisco.

~~~

In the hospital in London, French tries to comfort a distraught BBA. “I can’t lose Theo,” she says. “Not again. Not like this.”

“We have to try the movements again,” says Jesse. “I know they’re just choreography here – we all know that. But it still counts. If it has meaning to us, then it has meaning.” “Right,” says Angie. She turns to face Brendan and – despite her shoulder injury – begins the first movement, as Brendan mirrors her actions. “Maybe we can send you to another dimension where Theo is still alive, or bring him back. It worked for Jesse, and for Scott.” Emboldened, Buck, Steve and French join in; they stand in a circle around BBA. “Oh boys,” she says.

At the hotel, Homer, Scott and Rachel burst into the room; their plane had been delayed by the storm. Homer yells “OA!”, runs over to her and cradles her head, crying and repeating “No! No!” He is inconsolable. Scott and Rachel are crying too. “We have to try the healing movements,” says Scott. “I don’t care if it doesn’t work, we have to do it.” Scott and Rachel stand on either side of OA, performing the movements; after a while, Homer gently lets go of OA's limp body and joins in with them, his face streaked with tears. Paz is also in tears, but watches from the side, unsure what to make of the situation. The hotel manager enters the room, and Homer looks across at her.

It’s Evelyn.

“I had a dream that you would come here,” she tells Homer. “And that we would do this.”

She places a hand on Homer’s shoulder, then positions herself and begins to perform the movements in unison with Homer, Scott and Rachel.

Seeing the four of them moving in harmony, Paz feels an overwhelming urge to step in and complete the circle. Placing a hand on Rachel’s shoulder, she fills the gap. Through tears, the five of them perform the movements around OA’s body.

In London, the five teenagers continue to perform the movements around BBA.

Outside Netflix headquarters, large groups of fans also move in unison, in a mass act of faith.

A #SaveTheOA billboard goes live in Times Square, New York.

~~~

Khatun cradles OA.

“Am I Brit… or OA?” OA asks. “Everything that happened – did I just write it, or did it really take place?” “You already know the answer,” Khatun replies. “You are both the dreamer and the dream. These worlds, and we within them, are made of words.”

In the hotel room, the police arrive and see Homer, Scott, Rachel, Paz and Evelyn performing the movements around Brit’s body. The lead officer orders them to stop. When the five fail to comply, he draws his gun.

Steve, French, Buck, Jesse and Angie continue the movements in London.

The fans continue the movements outside Netflix HQ.

In the garden of the institute on Treasure Island, Karim stands to one side behind the robots, as Nina and Renata position themselves in the center of them. He activates the robots, and watches as they whirr into life and begin to perform the movements to send Nina and Renata to D3.

~~~

In Khatun’s arms, OA feels a slight breath of wind in her hair; Khatun’s shawl dances in the gentle breeze.

In the hotel room, Paz passes out. The police officer is about to shoot Homer when OA gasps back to life as Nina’s spirit enters her body.

“OA!” cries Homer – and he kneels and kisses her.

Fade to black.

~~~

Title card: 2 MONTHS LATER

Jason/Hap is in jail.

Brit, wearing glasses and a chic headscarf, sits at a small table outside a street café, typing. In a voiceover, OA tells us: “Brit wrote The OA as an escape for herself – with Jason controlling every aspect of her life, playing Prairie and Nina was a way for her to be free and imagine a different life for herself. They were the versions of herself that she wished she could be. Homer was the sensitive, generous man she wished she could have been loved by, BBA the mentor she never had. Scott the addict, Rachel the singer, Renata the musician… they were a way to express the beauty she found in the world, a beauty so often trapped and constrained by circumstance, commerce, and the selfish interests of greater powers. Steve, Buck, Alfonso, Jesse and Angie were her desire to give a voice to young people who felt lost – they represented the good she saw in humanity. Even if Jason took credit for it, she knew it would always be her work. But never in her wildest dreams, when she imagined this world and made it blossom into being, did she think that her fictional creations would band together to save her in real life. I am Brit. I am Nina. I am the OA. And I know now how to leave this reality. Each of us is the author of our own story.”

During OA’s voiceover, the camera very slowly zooms out from Brit, revealing more of the café and street scene. The lettering and signs are in Spanish – Brit is in Madrid. As the shot widens further, the camera turns to look further down the street, where a film crew is on a location shoot. A director claps a clapperboard and shouts “Action!”, and a glamorously made-up Paz Vega strides confidently down the sidewalk in character among a crowd of extras, as a dolly camera runs backwards along a track in front of her and a boom operator scurries alongside her. She stops, strikes a pose, looks straight into the camera lens over the top of her sunglasses, and says “Yo soy el ángel original” with a radiant, knowing smile… and the frame freezes.


End file.
